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- 2020
- Giant Pictures
- 1 h 32 m
- 2020
- Giant Pictures
- 1 h 32 m
Summary Artist Matt Furie, creator of the comic character Pepe the Frog, begins an uphill battle to take back his iconic cartoon image from those who used it for their own purposes.
Directed By: Arthur Jones
Written By: Giorgio Angelini, Matt Furie, Aaron Wickenden, Arthur Jones
- 2020
- Giant Pictures
- 1 h 32 m
- 2020
- Giant Pictures
- 1 h 32 m
Feels Good Man
79
7.4
Where to Watch
Summary Artist Matt Furie, creator of the comic character Pepe the Frog, begins an uphill battle to take back his iconic cartoon image from those who used it for their own purposes.
Directed By: Arthur Jones
Written By: Giorgio Angelini, Matt Furie, Aaron Wickenden, Arthur Jones
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 18 Critic Reviews
79
94% Positive
17 Reviews
17 Reviews
6% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 18 Critic Reviews
79
94% Positive
17 Reviews
17 Reviews
6% Mixed
1 Review
1 Review
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Feels Good Man is, in some sense, a horror movie about the legacy of images, the ownership of images by their creators, and the lives they take on outside of the artists who make them. In particular, it’s a horror story about the life of one particular image: Pepe.
That the democratization of the internet has opened a doorway for fascist ideologies to openly quash democratic ones is an irony that isn’t lost on the film.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 14 User Ratings
7.4
79% Positive
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
14% Mixed
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
7% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 14 User Ratings
7.4
79% Positive
11 Ratings
11 Ratings
14% Mixed
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
7% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
Watched this for the first time during a watch together on Twitch, there was also a Q&A with the creator afterwards as well.
I've always seen the memes about the character but never understood it's meaning and it's history. This documentary was very informative and kept me interested throughout. The pacing was great and I didn't feel that anything was dragged out too long. One of my favourite parts was the great animations throughout the doc, especially that last one.
I highly recommend giving this a watch.
Report
Feels Good Man is an intriguing look behind an online curtain that rarely gets pulled back, and is investigated critically even more infrequently. Slick animation graphics and well-paced interview testimonials bolster the effort and paint a very clear (if regrettable) picture of how art can sometimes get away from the artist.
At its best, the movie is a vertiginous, head-slapping examination of the tangible, unpredictable consequences of making art.
Director Arthur Jones delivers a fascinating deep dive into meme culture, tracing how something like this can happen so quickly in our viral age.
Jones uses Furie’s story, and some gorgeous animation, as a wonderfully succinct window into the way social media has changed the country. By letting 4channers speak for themselves, the film also puts a face to the bad actors without ever letting them off the hook.
Buying Pepe as misunderstood and buying Pepe as a character destined for redemption are two different things, and it's the argument after the buildup where Feels Good Man stopped feeling persuasive for me. Your hopefulness may vary.
I can't imagine what it's like to have your work stolen and used as an object of hate.
Pepe's drawing became something it was never meant to be, and something its creator simply could not undo, let alone stop.
This documentary doesn't cover a lot of ground, but it does an adequate job of exposing the issue and tying it perfectly into the distortion of what the US became once this situation started to get so insidious.
Report
Production Company
Ready Fictions,
Wavelength,
XTR,
Museum & Crane,
Secret Sauce Media,
Whitewater Films
Release Date Sep 4, 2020
Duration 1 h 32 m
Genres
Website
https://feelsgoodmanfilm.jp/
Awards
Critics' Choice Documentary Awards
• 3 Nominations
Sundance Film Festival
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
Big Sky Documentary Film Festival
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
